London - It can rustle up everything a barbecue can - without the endless wait for the charcoal to heat up.
But as well as sausages, hamburgers and kebabs, this portable oven can also cook a stone-baked pizza. And in less time than it takes to make toast.
The British makers, who have been working on the design for three years, say the Roccbox, as it is called, will remove all the frustrations of the traditional barbecue.
It is ready to use in just 15 minutes and can bake a crisp 12-inch pizza in 90 seconds, as well as roasting meat, fish and vegetables, and even baking crusty bread.
More than 116 million barbecues were fired up last year, with all too many taking ages to get to the right temperature. The result? Ritual offerings of meat burnt to a crisp on the outside yet raw in the middle. According to the makers, who are based in Dorset, that won’t happen with the Roccbox.
It blazes to a fiery 500C (932F) in just 15 minutes fuelled by either wood or gas, and is thought to cut cooking time by up to a third. Eggs should take a minute or two, and sausages and steaks about five minutes.
The oven burns through a small bag of kindling every hour or so and its gas burner uses normal propane or patio gas bottles.
A burner at the back of the oven creates a flame which rolls across the top, cooking the surface of the food. A flat stone base across the bottom of the cooking area crisps the food from underneath. Despite the roaring temperatures inside, the oven isn’t dangerously hot on the outside.
It is covered in multiple steel layers with an insulated jacket and a silicone outer sleeve. And the makers say that once it has heated up to working temperature it produces very little smoke.
It weighs a fairly hefty 44lb (about 20kg) and so is not really suitable for carrying any great distance but at 18ins high and 16ins across - and with handy folding legs - it fits into a car boot for taking to picnics or camping.
While it’s much smaller than the average barbecue, its faster cooking times mean a family chef could have dishes rolling out fast enough to serve a crowd.
Roccbox’s founder and chief executive Tom Gozney set up a company selling pizza ovens to pubs and restaurants in 2009 after tiring of serving up soggy, inedible pizzas cooked in a normal oven.
After building his own brick pizza oven in his back garden, Mr Gozney started Roccbox with a £5 000 (about R105 000) loan from his mother. He put together a team and set about making a portable oven small enough to replace garden barbecues.
He said: “Anything a barbecue can do a Roccbox can do. It’s more than perfect for pizza, but it can also bake light and fluffy bread, caramelise roasted vegetables, roast tender joints of meat and create the perfect crispy fish skin. It has taken over three years to get to where it is today.”
Daily Mail